I'll try to be as brief as possible.... On the newly aquired 83 sedan I was doing the brakes today (sucks) and it started to sprinkle...my wife put the key for the impreza in the ignition and got it jammed. I actually got the key cyl. to turn far enough for the car to start up. I was trying to get the key to turn back now but I kept hitting the start position (keep in mind the car is running) so I can hear the starter loseing some teeth so I decide to pull the coil wire (while it is running) to make it stop so i don't ruin anything. 20 min later I get the key out and we decied to try out the new brakes...now the car won't start. I hooked up the coil but it still won't fire. It is getting gas (I can smell it) but no fire.

 

The coil is an accel yellow coil so I figure what a coincidence it died right now... hmmm so I grab the one out of the XT-t and try it. It won't fire with that one either. I tested the the xt coil with a light and it iluminates going from + coil to -bat but the -coil will also put out a little light going to the -bat. The accel will indicate 12v at +coil to -bat but nothing going -coil to -bat. To top thiings off I ripped the coil wire (coil to the distributer) so now I need to find a new coil wire:banghead: ... anyhow which coil is correct and did I fudge something up pulling the coil wire while fast idleing? WTF? Please help...

Place the test light on the minus side of the coil and clip lead to ground. Then try cranking the engine. If the light is on but doesn't pulse on and off for the ignition pluses then the pick up in the distributor is bad. If you have low or no light then the coil is bad. Also make sure the ground to the coil is good.

how are coils grounded? Does the chassis of the coil have to be grounded because when I tried the xt coil I just layed it there to try it. Does it need strapped down to work?

 

TIA

The body of the coil needs to have a good connection to ground. It is usually stapped down in a holder of some sort.

new coil that is grounded but still no spark.....now where do i start looking? HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

You need to follow the instructions that I gave you in my first post. Did you do that test? If so, what did you find out?

no pulse.....so i guess I need a distributer. ( I bought a rotor just incase that thing took a hit) Went to Napa today and they told me $289 +exch. for a reman. What do I do.....reman or find one used and hope for the best?

 

I really can't understand how a car with 53k on it can have a bad disty....

 

I'm comming to the hunch that the accel coil finished off the guts of the disty or they were bad and the high power actually made it work for a little while longer. Now that the coil is dead and the "correct" parts are on there it won't run.

 

Does any of this make sense??? I losing my mind here.

A few points to add to what Cougar has said:

 

Grounding: Traditionally, both the primary and the secondary windings of an ignition coil are both "powered" off of the same primary post (coil +), and the primary is grounded thorugh the points/"ignitor"/ignition-transistor while the secondary is grounded through the park plugs. The coil case should not need to be grounded.

 

Pulling the secondary wire off of an operating coil is tough on everything, because the coil is still trying to send electricity to ground, and will try to find a path to ground. This is why manuals tell you not to crank the car with the ignition "on" and the coil output lead disconnected unless you ground the output lead.

 

Coils are not magic. If you supply power to the "+" terminal, and then ground the "-" terminal, they will produce a spark if they are functioning. You can test a coil by doing so, though you have to decide if the resulting spark is strong or weak.

Thanks for making that clear NorthWet. I didn't explain that right and had a wrong thought about the design of it.